Arma 3 Will Be Steam Exclusive

[Karloff]

Arma 3 Will Be Steam Exclusive

Bohemia Interactive feels Steam offers too many advantages for Arma 3 to ignore.

Arma fans looking forward to Arma 3 had better get on the Steam bandwagon, as Bohemia Interactive's latest installment in its military shooter series will be a Steam exclusive. Otherwise, says Bohemia, it couldn't see a 2013 release, but that isn't the only reason Arma 3's going to Steam.

"As an independent developer, we're constantly evaluating the way we develop, distribute and publish games," says Bohemia Interactive's Marek ?paněl. "We have evaluated the pros and cons, but in the end Steam enables us to release Arma 3, brings massive advantages to the game, and improves the end-user experience." Besides, he says, the vast majority of Arma's player base already comes from Steam, so for them this oughtn't to be too much of a burden.

If you were wondering, yes, this is - at least in part - a piracy thing. Bohemia's done its best to avoid DRM and similar protective tools, but the toll piracy takes on its titles has become too much to bear. "We strongly believe the best anti-piracy comes from offering valuable online services that people are willing to invest in," says Bohemia in a blog post [http://www.bistudio.com/english/company/developers-blog/356-arma3-steam-dev-blog]. "Supporting that philosophy: we saw we could not deliver in-house solutions on time, but could take Steam's and expand upon them."

That's not to say that there won't be a boxed release. However the boxed release will include Steam codes in a retail package, or contain DVD data to make installation speedier. There will also be offline play support, though naturally offline play precludes multiplayer. As for a release date, 2013 is all anyone knows right now, but Bohemia thinks it's in the final stretch.

Source: Bohemia Interactive [http://www.bistudio.com/english/company/developers-blog/356-arma3-steam-dev-blog]


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[MorganL4]

This is not unheard of..... Skyrim for PC required Steam...... As has been stated many times.... piracy exists (in most cases) due to convenience. Using the convenient means of accessing the game through Steam really helps cut down piracy.

http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20111023/22062816484/just-as-valve-shows-that-you-can-compete-with-piracy-russia-russia-starts-cracking-down-piracy.shtml

 

[RhombusHatesYou]

Well fuck... I was hoping for a gog.com release.

Ugh... I bet Valve finnagled mod support to go via Steam Workshop, too.

 

[anian]

What are the odds it won't be available in Greece?

 

[Falterfire]

"Though naturally offline play precludes multiplayer": Wait, so Arma 3 officially won't have multiplayer? When did that happen?

NOTE: I am aware this is not what the article meant to say. It's just the way I read it at first and decided to see if I could confuse some other people too. Because it's not the internet if you're not helping to spread intentional misinformation.

 

[Octorok]

"Though naturally offline play precludes multiplayer": Wait, so Arma 3 officially won't have multiplayer? When did that happen?

No, it just means that when playing Arma 3 while not connected to the internet, you can't play the multiplayer. Which is true of all games.

 

[ScrabbitRabbit]

Ah, fuck. I understand why they're doing it, but still. I hate using Steam. The only benefits are the sales and the IM functions for me; the client is a horrible, slow and even buggy mess.

 

[Combustion Kevin]

well...
at least its not origin.

CAPTCHA: you're fired!
I was just kidding! jesus!

 

[lacktheknack]

"Though naturally offline play precludes multiplayer": Wait, so Arma 3 officially won't have multiplayer? When did that happen?

Wat wat wat wat wat wat wat wat wat wat wat

How did you extract that... from that quote...?

Did... did I just witness the birth of a rumor?

OT: Not an issue for me. I still like Steam, even though the rest of the gaming world is getting increasingly hostile towards it.

 

[cerebus23]

yea that 14 mb of ram steam takes up on my system is a real drain. think magicjack takes up 3 times that on average.

really far as bloatware goes steam is pretty damn tiny all things considered, and last i tried offline mode actually works, which it never used to.

 

[TheRussian]

yea that 14 mb of ram steam takes up on my system is a real drain.

If 14mb of ram is a significant impact on your system, I would assume you might need to buy a computer made in the 21st Century. Then again, if you are rendering a polysurface with 9 million polygons spinning at Mach 7 in 1080p HD, then yes, Steam would probably slow that down. A bit. Maybe.

I'm constantly surprised by people claiming that Steam is "bloatware" or inconvinient too use. I have to admit, people criticizing DRM is perfectly valid, if irrational, but anything else seems to be a reaction to Steam being the most popular video game distribution system on the market.

 

[Daverson]

thats kind of dissapointing.

modding arma 3 will become a chore.
and playing it after x years, also.

...How so? I somehow get the feeling you don't know what you're talking about, so I'll regale you with the experience of someone who's been modded the ArmA engine since before it even was the ArmA engine. (that's me, in case you were wondering)

Steam doesn't affect modding in the slightest, in fact, Oxygen doesn't even need ArmA to be installed to work properly, installing mods won't be more difficult (the only difference being the directory you dump modfolders in will look like "C:\Steam\Steamapps\Common\ArmA 3" rather than "C:\ArmA 3"). The only issue is if you're the kind of person who doesn't use modfolders and has a different installation for each set of addons, which, frankly, is just plain inexcusable. You should be ashamed of yourself if you do this, and you should be especially ashamed of yourself if you've made a mod which forces other people to do this.

If anything, it'll make modding easier, since you won't need to fuck around with patches, which has always been the bane of ArmA modding, especially with ArmA.1, where every different publisher released a different version which all needed different (almost ritualistic) patching processes.

As for playing it after X years being a problem, firstly, stop using Roman Numerals. Sure, it saved you pressing 1 key to write 10, but let's say you want to write 3333? That's MMMCCCXXXIII, that's not easy to write at all! Secondly, how?

Now, what you should be concerned about is the whole "not owning your games, what if the servers are shut down, where do my games go, etc. etc.", but from what I've seen, Steam doesn't seem to have much of a problem with this (unlike some digital distribution systems...)

Ugh... I bet Valve finnagled mod support to go via Steam Workshop, too.

Workshop doesn't stop you from using non-workshop mods.

 

[RhombusHatesYou]

Ugh... I bet Valve finnagled mod support to go via Steam Workshop, too.

Workshop doesn't stop you from using non-workshop mods.

I know that it's just that Steam Workshop seems to splinter off another piece of any mod community for games it supports... plus I find it badly organised.

As for playing it after X years being a problem, firstly, stop using Roman Numerals.

I believe rhizhim was using 'x' as an indeterminate value not as a roman ten and that you should probably feel a bit of a knob right this minute.

 

[cerebus23]

yea that 14 mb of ram steam takes up on my system is a real drain.

If 14mb of ram is a significant impact on your system, I would assume you might need to buy a computer made in the 21st Century. Then again, if you are rendering a polysurface with 9 million polygons spinning at Mach 7 in 1080p HD, then yes, Steam would probably slow that down. A bit. Maybe.

I'm constantly surprised by people claiming that Steam is "bloatware" or inconvinient too use. I have to admit, people criticizing DRM is perfectly valid, if irrational, but anything else seems to be a reaction to Steam being the most popular video game distribution system on the market.

i was being somewhat sarcastic i somewhat agree with you . i never found steam any worse than GFWL or any IM program and in some cases steam is better than them.

i have let it run for days before and just forgot about it while playing w/e doing work and etc and never had issues related to it. tbh.

 

[Vigormortis]

Though I wouldn't have minded seeing ARMA III getting a more wide-spread release, I'm glad they chose Steam for their exclusivity deal. If only because, if nothing else, the one thing the ARMA series desperately needed was a solid, stable, and organized modding base.

Not that the series mod support was "bad" before, it just lacked...structure. (for lack of a better word)

OT: Not an issue for me. I still like Steam, even though the rest of the gaming world is getting increasingly hostile towards it.

Nah. It seems more like the vocal minority, especially around this site, have been becoming...well...more vocal about their "distaste" for Steam.

If anything, Steam's becoming more popular. It's active user base has now drastically outnumbered Xbox Lives user base.

I imagine this makes the "haters" incredibly mad. More so than they've ever been. Which may explain their increase in "complaints".

 

[lacktheknack]

Though I wouldn't have minded seeing ARMA III getting a more wide-spread release, I'm glad they chose Steam for their exclusivity deal. If only because, if nothing else, the one thing the ARMA series desperately needed was a solid, stable, and organized modding base.

Not that the series mod support was "bad" before, it just lacked...structure. (for lack of a better word)

OT: Not an issue for me. I still like Steam, even though the rest of the gaming world is getting increasingly hostile towards it.

Nah. It seems more like the vocal minority, especially around this site, have been becoming...well...more vocal about their "distaste" for Steam.

If anything, Steam's becoming more popular. It's active user base has now drastically outnumbered Xbox Lives user base.

I imagine this makes the "haters" incredibly mad. More so than they've ever been. Which may explain their increase in "complaints".

Makes sense. I found it odd that the gaming world seemed to be hating it recently, considering how it was adored merely a year ago.

 

[TheRussian]

yea that 14 mb of ram steam takes up on my system is a real drain.

If 14mb of ram is a significant impact on your system, I would assume you might need to buy a computer made in the 21st Century. Then again, if you are rendering a polysurface with 9 million polygons spinning at Mach 7 in 1080p HD, then yes, Steam would probably slow that down. A bit. Maybe.

i was being somewhat sarcastic i somewhat agree with you . i never found steam any worse than GFWL or any IM program and in some cases steam is better than them.

i have let it run for days before and just forgot about it while playing w/e doing work and etc and never had issues related to it. tbh.

I am so sorry, your sarcasm completely flew over my head. My family is somewhat sarcasm-blind, and I think it may have been passed on to me.

I've not actually responded to the subject of the thread, and would like to say: Good news! It's time publishers realized how useful Steam is to the development and release of games that change during their lifespan.